after the first hour and release him
before the eyes of all. What more effective form of control could you
devise for me than this? How could I remain impenitent and unsubmissive
when for my faults an innocent man stood exposed in contumely to the
public gaze? Sir, you would have me exemplary in a week, or a fugitive
from that country which set so high a standard of honor for its princes.
As it is, our whipping boys go unlabeled with our names; and our
offenses are expiated by countless thousands who know not for whose sins
they suffer."

"Max," said his father, "you sound as if you were quoting from some
book."

"I am," answered the Prince; "it is one that I am writing myself, that
being the only form of free action that is left to me. At the threshold
of manhood I recognized what my fate was to be, and that I was not
really intended to do anything. That is why I talk. Activity is
necessary to me. To keep myself in physical vigor I run about and play;
to keep myself in mental vigor I read, I examine life, and I propound
theories. This book which I am now writing would probably excite no
comment if published anonymously, but will be regarded as revolutionary
when it is known to have been written by the heir to a crown."

"Do you mean to publish it, then?" cried the King in awestruck tone.

"Certainly," answered the Prince. "Has not the nation every right to
know the opinions of its possible future King? Never shall it be said
that Jingalo accepted me blindly under the dark cover of heredity."

At this news the King looked really aghast. "And you propose, while I am
spending myself in trying to add luster----" he began, then checked
himself; "you propose to publish a work which may destroy the confidence
at present subsisting between the sovereign and the people?"

"Would not false confidence be a worse alternative, sir?" inquired Max.

"But you are doing it in my time," said the King plaintively; "it is my
reign you are disturbing, not your own. I don't think you have any
right."

"My dear father," answered the Prince, "the more impossible I prove
myself to be, the more popular you will become."

But the King was not to be consoled by that prospect; he was working not
for himself alone--not for himself, indeed, at all.

"Max," he said earnestly, "believe me, monarchy, even at the present
day, is of the greatest social and political value. Unsettle it in the
public mind, and you unsettle the basis of governmen